[letter] Creative Director's Letter : The future of MMORPGs by David Cohen Corval

[Xavier Antoviaque]

Hello,

Any comments or questions about David's Creative Director Letter on the future of MMORPGs? Go ahead!

--
Xavier.

[vinnyq]

My gosh David, you sure are shooting for the moon. Very intringuing line of thoughts in mmorpgs being social tool. Use us for your social experiment will ya? Hah.

As long keep us entertain, I think we will gladly be along for the ride

[dc77066]

While playing games, we are more receptive to the teachings they contain. This is our nature. I think that these considerations are important, and they are a part of my motivation and ambition to work on MMORPGs due to their implications and perspectives.

I read that statement and wonder what it is we are supposed to be learning.
There some basic concepts being taught in Ryzom... Lessons about patience and apathy. Lessons about "if you do nothing, nothing happens". Lessons about how small our world is and how similar our experiences are despite religion, political, or geographical boundries. That if we can imagine ourselves on a distant planet, struggling for survival, rebuilding our civilization that maybe our RL struggles aren't so dissimilar.

But I can't take it this statement so literal because we want to be entertained as well. Lessons about good vs evil, man vs his environment or man vs his fellow man or even man vs himself have to be hidden behind something pretty. Something innovative.

If Ryzom was a learning game, what lessons about intolerance, war, fanaticism, greed, and struggle is the Saga based upon? Will our Ryzom children wake up one day and discover that they can communicate with the Kitin and form an alliance against our so-called benefactors? Will we truely have an impact on our game world to where the results of our efforts aren't limited to a script called "Fate"?

Ryzom is pretty. I'm hoping that its innovative enough to continue to capture our imagination. I want to recapture that feeling I had when I first spawned on the mainland. How I finally convinced myself to leave the sanctuary and explore beyond newbie island. When leveling was a by-product and not the goal.

What a strange trip this has been...

*puts another quarter in the slot*

"Brain, what are we gonna do tonight??"
"What we do every night, Pinky!"
"Grind another forage level?"
"Pinky, I'd nuke you right now but I left my amp in my other packer"
"Garf! I'll TP back and get it for you, Brain!"
"Thank you, Pinky, you're too kind" *smiles evilly*

-Raku

[jamela]

I just think that they would give us the opportunity to enjoy more about ourselves and give even more interest to our ‘in-body’ existence.

I completely agree with you there, David, I think this is the reason people enjoy playing. MMORPGs give us an opportunity to interact with people we wouldn't otherwise have met, and with the high degree of anonymity that the internet allows; double-edged sword though that may be. I would say this is where there may be a learning experience as we are most receptive when playing and having fun, which is great, but the greatest value in playing games is simply in having fun

[jaendra]

I hope you all will forgive my long post and that my insight outweighs my rambling

First of all David, I must confess that I signed up to SoR because I wanted to be a part of and observe the "social experiment" that is Ryzom. I too aspire to create games that rise to the level of literature; diversifying our experiences and exploring our humanity. You see, without diversity of experiences and ideas, humanity stagnates and our actions become driven by ignorance like sheep in a herd. For example, in the middle ages Europeans cloistered themselves behind walls; never venturing further than a mile or two from where they were born for fear of the unknown. For centuries society was crippled, ignorance prevailed and was perpetuated unquestioningly for generations. More recently, we have seen monolithic societies with totalitarian governments that murder individuals who stray away from the herd. In monolithic societies questions and education are a threat, whereas in diverse societies questions are vital and strengthen us. Ignorance is the absence of diversity and it weakens humanity and our evolution as animals. Ignorance is like asexual reproduction, perpetuating copies of itself and all its weaknesses. A virus can make an entire species go extinct. Sexuality is the single most important leap in evolution because it introduces diversity into a species, enabling it to develop more quickly. And the internet is the equivalent leap within humanity, connecting the entire globe and spreading the ideas and experiences that drive the evolution of our culture and our species.

These are vital, yet seldom asked questions: What drove us as a species to create the internet? What drives us to play MMOs? To seek out communities and social experiences? Could we be cells in the larger organism of humanity?
The internet and MMOs are not just what we do in our free time, they truly are a major force that shapes our personalities with experiences and incubate the seed of what humanity will become. This may be hard to see as the internet has only just begun. Just think: with these new tools we can create experiences, relationships, cultures, governments, ideas. We can play characters, situations, and make mistakes without the consequences of real life. We can learn and create freely what makes us human. That is the power of the Web, the MMO, and our future. The internet evolves with us, through natural selection. Already some MMOs have gone extinct, but the impacts on the people that played them remain. For instance the Ballistic Mystix guild started in the now extinct MMO Earth & Beyond but the experiences they shared were powerful enough to have recreated their guild on Atys.

The experiences we all share on Atys have meaning too, especially since SoR was created with the spirit of nurturing culture, and having us create our own futures for Atys. So we can learn much from MMOs and Ryzom. We are not simply subjects of a "social experiment"; we are what make atys enjoyable and alive. We are the lifeforce of the culture; we decide whether Ryzom survives and evolves. And with developers who genuinely understand and support our endeavors I think SoR has a great chance of having a full life.

Thanks David, for being my example

~Jaendra

[glipe]

Wonderful post! I can offer an answer to the first one of your seldom asked questions. War drove us to create the internet. The fun part was what happened after.